I finally resigned myself to opening some of these. Basically, I'll have three categories of what I'm doing with the VOTC figures.

OPENERSThese are just too good to keep in the bubble. The poseability, softgoods and overall detail demand that these figures need some space to breathe. Besides, I need to retire my Cantina Han's!

MOMCI had given up on being a MOMC collector with the advent of the SAGA/EPISODE II line. However, the VOTC line is packaged SO WELL that I have to keep a set in pristine condition, and these won't be leaving their clamshells anytime soon.

AUTOGRAPH FODDERThis is more of a personal slant on my collection, but where applicable, I like to get the actors to sign the figures. I already got Carrie Fisher to sign a Princess Leia courtesy of a great friend of mine who attended Comic Con. It's too bad that she will probably be THE ONLY actor from the ANH wave that will sign something, since Mark Hammil doesn't sign merchandise, Harrison Ford is among the Holy Grail of Star Wars actors, and Alec Guiness can't sign anything since unfortunately he's pushing up the daisies!

I'm more hopeful that I can get everyone in the ESB and most of the ROTJ waves to sign those figures. But seriously, who do you get to sign a Stormtrooper?!

Be those things as they may, all of the autographed figures are going to have to come out of the clamshells to get signed. At that point, I'll be sealing those right back up.

My 4 SW figures are staying clamshelled, but I wil review the situation when the ESB figures start turning up. I don't know if I can keep Vader, Lando and Yoda carded so I will probably double-up on these three. We'll see though...

Well, after seeing the rest of these at Comic Con, I think I'm gonna have to be getting at least 3 of each, for sure. I'm gonna need at least a couple openers - one for the regular figure display, and another "utility" one to use in various dioramas and such.

Still haven't decided if I'm going to go for a fourth set though, to keep on just the regular cardback (without the clamshell). Ugh, that's not a pleasant thought if I fall all the way down to those depths and need FOUR of each...

Matt are you saying the fourth set would be displayed without a star case? Wow, interesting approach. Anything I keep carded has a home in a star case. Period. I'm kind of wondering about a star case big enough to protect the VOTC outer case I do plan on keeping one set carded and having a loose set as well.

I really have to go check what I ordered at BBTS now that I've started picking these up at retail.

Being the frugal (read: cheap) person I am, I'm just buying one of each. The thing that I struggled with before actually buying any of the VOTC (I only have Ben, Han, and Leia as it stands right now) was that I really liked the packaging, but I also really wanted to see the figures loose. They were too nice to keep carded, but too nice to destroy the packaging.

What I ended up doing was carefully slicing between the four pieces of tape holding the clamshell halves together. I then removed the actual carded figure from the clamshell and then slowly removed the tape and residue from the clamshell. I used an Exacto knife to slice along the top, right, and bottom of the figure bubble; thankfully the coffin blister does not have the little tabs that sit under the bubble lip like regular carded figures have since POTF2. The bubble side that hasn't been cut acts as a hinge and allows you to easily remove the coffin the figure is in. The best part is that once you're through, you can just slide the coffin back into the bubble, close it, and replace it in the clamshell. The clamshell is so close to the bubble that it keeps it from flying open, and unless you're right on top of it, you don't even notice that it was ever opened in the first place. And plus you can get rid of that awful "CHOKING HAZARD" sticker affixed to the inside of the bubble that blocks most of the upper left side of the card.

So yeah, I will (hopefully) have a set of the 12 loose, but still carded and shelled to hang on the wall of my SW room. Being the cheap bastard I am, this enables me to have my cake and eat it too.

i think 3 of each is a little too absurd for me. i'm keeping my carded set in the clamshells and my loose set... loose. that's it. end of story.

of course, with the cards/bubbles/clamshells from my loose set (as well as a few other people who have offered to send me their garbage unwanted packaging) i'm going to making a few of my own votc that hasbro decided not to do.